


we're all desperate out here

by ButtTouchBrigade



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Other, Paranoia mention, Recreational Drug Use, Slight Canon Divergence, desperate drug use, different dialogues, nothing too bad just different meetings, ptsd mention, that sort of stuff, unhealthy mindsets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 09:44:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5243666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButtTouchBrigade/pseuds/ButtTouchBrigade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only sound between the two of them is the quiet hiss of the needle as she takes her daily dose of psycho. "That a good hit?" he asks, a grin splitting his lips. He didn't expect her to so liberally use chems. Not that he's complaining, of course.</p><p>"It never is." His gaze flicks up from the mentats he's fiddling with in surprise. "We all take drugs for a reason," she continues nonchalantly. "You take your chems to avoid reality, I take them because I'm desperate."</p><p>(The story of Rose, sole survivor of Vault 111, as she struggles through the Commonwealth in the hopes of finding her son).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. wring her out

**Author's Note:**

> i... have no explanation for this, honestly. I just wanted to highlight how I think my sole survivor would act and react around the land?
> 
> This is mostly going to be an exploration of her relationship with the different characters, but also a lot more about Hancock because that's who she romanced and my relationship with drugs is very complicated and I loved bringing it into Rose and Hancock's relationship :')

_October 23rd, 2077 - Rose Lawrence_

Rose’s story begins with the nuclear attack on Boston. 

The day is peaceful. The dog from across the street isn’t barking like a rabid animal, for once. The news channel is devoid of heartbreaking statements about the wellbeing of other countries. Codsworth makes breakfast perfectly, as usual. Shaun is sleeping, and her husband looks at his scarred face in the mirror with something akin to self consciousness. 

She moves into the bathroom, wrapping her arms around his chest. “You’re gonna knock ‘em dead at the Veteran’s hall tonight,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “I know it.”

He gives her a relieved chuckle, as if these words were exactly what he needed to hear. 

_Yes,_ she thinks. _It’s a perfect day._

Ironically, that’s when the sirens ring. 

Her mind blanks out. When asked about it later, she cannot explain what it felt like. It felt like, well, the colour white. Devoid of coherence. Devoid of emotion. Empty.

Before she can think about what to do, she’s opening the door to Shaun’s room. Nate rushes in, picks up the baby and looks at her. The look of a frightened deer is all too fitting a description of him, and she opens her mouth, trying to get words out. _It’ll be alright,_ she wants to say. 

Instead, she’s running again, as fast as her legs can carry her, pushing past the crowds that are gathering outside the Vault’s gate. A soldier gestures for her to follow him and she does so without question as he leads her to the elevator. The ground shakes when the bomb detonates, and she moves over to Nate without thinking. He wraps his arm around her and pushes down, forcing her to kneel on the rough surface of the elevator with her bare knees. 

The pain, however, does not compare to what the aftershock feels like. The elevator to the vault is already lowering by the time it hits them, and she doesn’t want to think about what it feels like for those who couldn’t get in. It’s strong, and it _burns,_ and she falls over, knocking down the person standing behind her. 

They are greeted to their new life with bright smiles and encouraging gestures. Her mind is empty when she grabs the Vault suit, strips down to her underwear and tugs it on. Her mind is empty as she climbs into the decontamination pod and sits down. 

Then, in stark contrast to the way she feels, everything goes black. 

 

_October 23, 2287 - Rose Lawrence_

Codsworth greets her with something akin to surprise and relief, a mix that is welcome considering Rose can only feel anguish and anger. Even though it had been made clear by General Atomics industries that the Mr. Handy line of robots was in no way able to feel, or express emotion, she’d always had her suspicions. 

So, she asks him, straight up. “Are you feeling alright? You seem a little weird.” 

The whole world comes crashing down around her the moment the robot’s three eyes slump forward and his voice turns into a high pitched whine as he unleashes a torrent of emotions on her. It's almost too much to bear, so  she joins in with little restraint. 

“Nothing gets nuclear fallout out from Vinyl wood!” he wails. “Nothing!” 

“They just… killed him. Right there, in front of me. They knew I was awake and-“

“And the dusting! How do you keep a collapsed house clea-”

“That man called me the backup. What does that mean? There is no tactical-“

“And the car!” Codsworth flails his arms around desperately. “The car! How do you polish _rust?”_

“Why would they take _him_? What’s so special about Shaun? There’s an entire world out there!”

They calm down, finally, and sit in idle silence as the sun sets. She watches the sky turn from a pale blue, to a bright orange. At least there was _something_ in this world that hadn’t changed. When the sky is no longer a maelstrom of bright colours, she turns to Codsworth, who is still silently floating next to her. 

“Concord, you said?” she queries. 

The robot hums in affirmation. 

Rose looks up at the sky, letting her head fall back to look at the moon. It looks so peaceful, up there.

She shakes her head. Honestly, all she wanted to do now was sleep.

The irony of her situation doesn’t escape her. Leave it to her to run away from having slept for 200 years by sleeping a little more. 

 

_October 24, 2287: Rose Lawrence_

There is no grace to how she arrives in Concord. She has no clue what the hell she’s doing when she runs up to the raider attacking the outer walls of the museum and clubs him on the head with the stun baton. 

She quickly strips his unconscious body of his armour, throwing it on as fast as possible before other raiders start noticing her presence. She grabs his helmet and pulls it over her face. There is no way she’s dying now. 

The dog that she picked up on the way to Concord, as well as the man standing on the balcony helps her take down the rest of the raiders. Turns out, fighting people armed with guns when all you are wielding is short range, melee weapon was not as effective as the movies made it seem. 

Though, she has Nate’s post-war paranoia to thank. She’s fit, strong, muscular to the point that some of her neighbours described her as _intimidating,_ and she’s more than willing and able to get into a physical fight. She know show to handle herself against these guys, even if the bullets grazing her limbs and digging themselves into her armour hurt like all seven circles of Hell combined. 

Nate had taught her how to defend herself with her feet, her fists, hell, even her head. But never with a gun. He would always freeze up when she mentioned that maybe a firearm would be a better way of protecting herself. 

_No,_ he’d say the moment she finished speaking. _Guns are_ ** _never_** _the answer._

Nate always claimed that war never changes. She had to disagree - war itself didn’t change, but it sure as hell changes people.

When the last man falls, finally, she turns her attention to the- was he a cowboy? on the balcony. He urges her to grab the musket at her feet and to help him end this attack. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she doesn’t know how to shoot a gun, much less operate one that looked so… strange. What the hell is that glowing red light anyways?

She makes it into the building and walks a total of 10 steps before she’s ambushed. She shoots the gun once, the red bullet landing square in one man’s chest, sending him flying back. He’s dead. Probably. She turns her attention to the others and tries to shoot the gun again when nothing happens. 

Chalking it up to the fact that she has no idea how technology works, 210 years into the future, she throws the gun aside and resumes fighting with her baton. Needless to say, she racks up a few wounds, but the armour that she pilfered from that dead man had most likely prevented the worst from happening. 

That and the incredibly helpful dog. She would have to find a name for him. 

The man on the balcony introduces himself as Preston Garvey, and talks to her as if she belonged in their world. As if she did not have a fish-out-of-the-water look on her face. Or the Vault suit that she was so obviously wearing. No matter, she thinks, when the man changes the subject to inform her about a power-armour suit. 

She still has no idea what is going on when the settlers push her back out of the door and tell her to go get the fusion core for the suit, but the words ‘power-armour’ sound exciting. She heads down there, her head almost spinning due to the unhealthy cocktail of confusion, distress and fear that her mind is brewing. She doesn’t understand the code on the terminal and has absolutely no idea how to crack it, but she tries anyways. After a few minutes of typing out different words that she spots in the coding, the terminal unlocks with an audible click and her body slumps forward with relief. 

The doors open and she moves into the room, glancing around before spotting the fusion core. She pulls it out of its casing slowly, expecting some kind of explosion, or maybe electric sparks. When nothing happens, she sighs and pulls the remainder of the core out in one swift tug, earning a groan from the machine it was previously tucked in. The sound startles her, and the moment the lights start flickering, she runs out of the basement. 

She’d watched enough of those horror movies as a teenager to know that flickering lights meant danger. 

Holding the core at arm’s length, she moves back up the stairs and up to the roof of the building, unsure how to proceed. 

When she opens the door to the roof, she doesn’t expect to come face to face with the power-suit. Needless to say, it scares the crap out of her. It’s waiting there, right in front of her, as if the person who had been wearing it was so close to reaching the building when the bombs hit. Its arm is still reaching forward, almost touching her as she moves past the door. 

Is it even that old? No matter. She hears the gunfire in the background, echoed only by the very peculiar sound of Preston’s gun. She steps around the suit, looking for a place that would fit the fusion core. When she sees it, in the centre of a valve, she takes no time pushing it in. The suit releases a few hisses that have her stumbling backward, and then it slides open. 

A skeleton falls out of it. By this point, though, she’s not surprised. Steeling her stomach and preventing herself from gagging, she kicks the old bones aside and climbs in, whimpering when the suit closes up behind around her. 

It’s weirdly comfortable. The suit isn’t as heavy as she expected. It's almost as if it was carrying itself. She tests its joints once, twice, folding her arms this way and that, twisting her wrists, clenching and relaxing her hands.  It feels like a second skin. For the first time since she has woken up in this hell-hole of a new reality, she smiles. A heartfelt grin, one that hurts where her lip was split, but she can’t bring herself to care. 

The suit brings out something primal in her. A surge of heat flows through her body, making her limbs tingle with each step she takes toward the crashed Vertibird. She doesn’t know what she’s doing when she rips the somehow-still-functioning minigun out of the helicopter. She’s certain of one thing though, as her fingers find the manual trigger and wrap securely around it.

These raiders are going to have a bad time. 


	2. take her by the hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghouls, terrible shots and a little bit more insight into Rose's morality standpoint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mff thank you for the kudos and the views and the subscriptions and the bookmarks and the comments i never thought people would actually read this and I'm just :') 
> 
> I hope you like Rose.

_October 24, 2287: Preston Garvey_

When he asked the Vault Dweller to get out there and help them fight the raiders, he didn’t think he was sending her toward her unavoidable demise. As he shoots at the numerous raiders gathering around her, he thinks that perhaps he should have listened to Mama Murphy. 

Because out of the sewers comes a Deathclaw. He’d heard of them, hell, he’d even seen one, once. But he’d never fought one - when you’re walking through the wastelands with 20 unarmed settlers behind you, you don’t want to take a creature like that head-on. 

He watches as the girl simply turns and _stares_ at the creature barreling toward her. “Rest in Peace,” Preston whispers, as he aims his rifle at the creature and takes a shot. It hits the Deathclaw right on the shoulder, but it doesn’t even seem to phase it. Rose, on the other hand, is standing perfectly still. “Move, come on, just _do something,”_ he grinds out between clenched teeth, aiming his gun at the monster once more. 

Then, it roars, and she seems to snap out of whatever trance she’s in. She raises the minigun and empties the entirety of its ammo into the creature’s chest. Preston almost relaxes. Watching her in action gives him a small sliver of hope. He fires again, and this time it hits the creature in the eye, earning a shriek from it. 

Still, it does nothing. The moment the monster regains its composure, it starts barrelling toward Rose. From where he’s standing, it looks as if the minigun barely scratched the Deathclaw. He hopes that he’s just blind, because there’s no way she can fight him now that she has no effective firepower. 

He thinks a final sorry as the creature charges toward Rose. 

Thing is, Rose doesn’t run away like he expects her to. No, instead, she chucks the minigun straight into the monster’s face, stopping it mid-charge and making it stumble backwards. Before Preston can scream out a warning, the girl jumps at the Claw, the weight of the suit bringing both her and the creature down. 

“What the hell?” Preston mutters, studying the fight through the scope of his gun. He can’t see it clearly, not from where he’s standing, and he most certainly can't get a clean shot, but it looks like the girl is trying her hardest to grab the creature’s neck. The Deathclaw fights back, of course. It rips the leg and arm protection off of her as easily as he would rip a piece of paper. 

But then it suddenly stills, and Rose is pushing herself up on wobbly limbs. Speechless, he lowers his gun and watches as she trudges back to the building. 

Had she just _wrestled_ a Deathclaw and won the battle?

_October 24, 2287: Rose Lawrence_

“What? No!” she retorts. “I didn’t wrestle the- you called it a Deathclaw? Either way, I didn’t wrestle it to death, you got it all wrong. Who am I, wonder woman?” She rolls her eyes, adjusting her grip on the minigun. It’s heavy, even with the help of the power-armour.  “First, you wounded its eye, which gave me the upper hand. Second, the minigun opened a wound at its neck, and I figured I could get it to… rip. It’s why I threw the gun at its face, I believed that would do the trick. Obviously it didn’t,” she concludes sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. “It took a bit more effort than that.”

She glances at the creature’s corpse, a few feet ahead of them. “I’m pretty sure it was still alive when I left it, in fact. We might want to hurry.”

“Oh, it’s dead now,” Preston states, his gaze following hers. Yup, Rose has to admit, the way its neck is bent seems unnatural, even for an irradiated spawn-of-the-devil like a Claw. “May want to gather its meat before we leave.”

“What? They can be eaten?” Rose queries, feeling bile rising at the back of her throat. The thing didn’t look anything close to appetising. 

“Any creature in the Commonwealth can technically be eaten,” the man explains, tipping his head toward the dead Brahmin on the road ahead of them. “Even people, sometimes, when one is desperate enough. Although, Deathclaw meat is… almost a delicacy, considering how rare they are, up here.”

“Rare, huh?” Rose queries. 

_Then how come I walk straight into one on my second day of being awake in this hellhole?_

_“_ Just my luck,” she mutters. 

 

_October 30th, 2287: Preston Garvey_

She decides to spend some time simply exploring, for a few days. Figuring out the geography of the land around Sanctuary Hills, which is _nothing_ like she remembers it. She asks him to come along with her and Dogmeat, just in case she screws up and finds herself in an _unsavoury_ situation. 

This does give Preston the opportunity to teach her how to shoot a gun. However, for being such an impressive close-combat fighter, Rose was a terrible shot. As in she could miss a point blank shot even if her target was standing a foot away from her and completely still. 

“No matter,” she says as she drops another pistol on the ground after having missed the remaining 20 bullets in it by trying to shoot a mole rat. Preston had been the one to kill it, trying his hardest not to laugh enough to stabilise his shot. 

When he eyes her, an amused grin on his lips, she pulls out the blade she’s started favouring. “I can still fight like this.”

“Not against a sniper,” he argues. “Or anyone wearing a decent amount of armour.”

“You underestimate me,” is all she replies with, before promptly tripping over a branch and falling flat on her face. 

 

_October 30th, 2287: Preston Garvey_

Her first meeting with feral ghouls is a memory that he is a) grateful to have witnessed, b) going to treasure until he dies. 

It all starts out with a small growl as they walk across the train tracks close to Concord. He shushes her when he hears it, sticking out his arm and preventing her from taking another step. He knows it’s not something dangerous, probably just a mutt, otherwise the growl would have been louder, but he can’t help but charge up his rifle just in case. Rose herself has reached for her blade, the only source of light around them coming from the charged laser in his weapon, and the dull glow of her Pip-Boy. 

They wait in anticipation, the silence between them weighing heavy on his shoulders, until she snorts. 

“You’re just pulling my leg, Garvey.” 

He really isn’t, but quite a bit of time has gone by and he feels like the animal may have realised that it was outmatched. With a small smile, he relaxes, shakes his head and gestures for her to walk ahead. What, with that power suit, she’s always been the better one to walk face-first into danger. 

Even she had said so, so he doesn’t feel as guilty. 

She takes a few steps forward, arm mechanically moving back to sheathe her blade. He makes a point to stay behind and see if her movements have perhaps drawn the animal’s attention back to them. Checking the horizon, he doesn’t realise that she’s moved pretty much out of sight. 

Until he hears a chorus of both human and inhuman screeches. And then she’s running, back toward him, her suit causing all the commotion in the world as she screams bloody murder. He doesn’t have time to ask her what’s wrong before an entire pack of feral ghouls come into view, following close behind her. 

She picks him up with ease, and normally he would have been offended, but there’s no _way_ they can take on that many of the fuckers right there and then, especially not with Rose so terrified. It’s the complete opposite of when she faced down that Deathclaw. 

He doesn’t miss the irony of it. Not one bit. The way she’s got him slung over her shoulder as she runs is really uncomfortable, but he really can’t bring himself to care, because she’s still screaming, even as she outruns the pack and the ghouls lose interest, even as they reach Sanctuary, even as she’s putting him down and climbing out of her armour. 

And him? He’s laughing way too hard for his own good.

 

_October 31st, 2287: Preston Garvey_

When she picks up a third clip board in a row from the old hospital they’re scavenging through, Preston decides it’s time to teach her how to live like a proper Commonwealth citizen. The good type of Commonwealth citizen, he supposes. They’re sitting in one of Sanctuary’s many remodelled homes, two cups of water sitting before them when he discovers that she may not have been as innocent as he previously believed.

“We don’t want to be the same type of person as the raider scum we’re trying to clean out of the Commonwealth,” he explains. “We don’t take from the living. We don’t steal from shops. And for the love of God, stop carrying all that trash around, you got that?”

She nods. There is a small moment of silence that allows for him to lift his cup to his lips and drink slowly. That is, until she leans in. 

“Is it still stealing if I kill the person?” she asks, and he doubles back, eyes going wide before he spits out what water was left in his mouth. 

“Of course it is!” he replies, outraged. “If they’re _innocent_ , then yes!”

She taps a finger against her bottom lip, ignoring the large, wet stains on her clothing. “I’m just saying. Raiders don’t really need their stuff, though I suppose they’re not innocent in your book so we’re on equal ground, here. Neither do greedy shopkeepers. Or corrupt politicians. That sort of stuff.”

“You have one fucked up sense of justice,” is all he manages to say, almost speechless at her nonchalance towards theft and murder. 

“That is _entirely_ subjective, my dear Preston.”

 

_November 1st, 2287: Rose Lawrence_

Rose’s days spent at Sanctuary Hills gives her time to learn about the Commonwealth and its residents. More specifically, what she should and shouldn’t eat, who she should and shouldn’t approach, what Supermutants were, and finally what Ghouls were. She listens to all of Preston’s lectures with wide eyes, absolutely fascinated by the existence of ghouls. 

“Wait, you said Ghouls were still people? The ones we’ve faced haven’t been very civil. Did I do something that triggered their feral instincts or what?”

Preston laughs, clapping a hand against his leg. “No, no, there’s two types of ghouls. Some are,” he pauses, gesturing vaguely, “people like you and me. They just look different. Then, there are the ferals, who we’ve encountered before.”

She cringes at the memory. “Shut up, Preston.”

He laughs again, this time hearty and _loud,_ and so obnoxious it makes her skin crawl. “Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles, leaning over to slap him on the shoulder. “What a comedian.”

“Hey now. Moral of the story is, you’re gonna meet your fair share of ghouls if you keep wandering around the Commonwealth like you have - civil ones. Most of them… aren’t good people by our standards though.”

“Why do you say that?”

Preston rubs the back of his neck absentmindedly. 

“Most of’em are living with some pretty serious oppression. Getting kicked out of cities, out of their homes, refused services, that type of stuff. A lot of them turn to mercenary or bandit work.”

Rose looks down at her cup then, gently tracing its rim with her index finger. “Even today, huh.”

_Maybe the world isn’t so different after all._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading ! any feedback is appreciated ahh idk


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